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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23289883">don't need to be in love to have a little romance</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingofstatic/pseuds/dreamingofstatic'>dreamingofstatic</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Gotham (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bathing/Washing, Canon-Typical Violence, Cuddling &amp; Snuggling, Dubcon Cuddling, Gun Violence, Jeremiah Is His Own Warning, Jeremiah is surprisingly nice for a creep, Kidnapping, Mild Blood, Obsession, Other, Stalking, Stockholm Syndrome, bullshit philosophy, gun mention, he does not hurt you he just talks about it a lot, he thinks you're pretty, oh boy where do i start, violence mention, welcome to clown hell</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-03-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 11:01:58</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>7,016</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/23289883</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreamingofstatic/pseuds/dreamingofstatic</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Focus on me. I want you to look only at me."</i>
</p><p>things got a little heated during a GCPD shootout, and now you're stuck underground. it would be a lot more bearable if not for your captor.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Jeremiah Valeska/Reader, Jeremiah Valeska/You</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>81</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. we can play it rough or we can play it safe</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>so,,,,, this is a thing. that exists. definitely.</p><p>i started writing this before season five, so i have absolutely NO idea where this falls in the canonical timeline, except it's definitely before Ace Chemicals. think of it as an AU where after the bombs fail, instead of shooting selina, jeremiah just kidnaps a police officer and calls it a day. </p><p>this is probably ooc as all heck but who cares??? this is lawless territory there are no gods here to observe us</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>You wouldn’t be here if not for your itchy trigger finger.</p><p>You can’t believe it, really. Even after taking into consideration the fact that you live in Gotham, there’s something strange about the way that these events progressed. It feels somber, almost anti-climactic. Even still, suspense broils low in your gut as the seconds tick by. </p><p>You’re waiting in a small room, with walls made of cold, hard cement. It feels too uniform, too seamless. Order forcibly instilled from chaos. “Waiting” might be a stretch; even you have been wrangled into neat, perfect submission via use of bungee cords and a metal folding chair. A piece of dirty fabric garbles your speech; you stink of sweat and fear. Your dress blues are missing. In their place, comfortable black pants made of an unfamiliar fabric, and a loose-fitting white shirt.</p><p>It’s deceptively simple. Something is wrong.</p><p>You’ve spent your fair amount of time on Gotham’s police force, if “a fair amount” translates to “about two weeks”. Nothing, no amount of training or learning, could have prepared you for an encounter with any villain, much less him.</p><p>Jeremiah Valeska.</p><p>The name doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. Most people learned through static repetition and names whispered through the fog of the Narrows about his predecessor; energetic, charismatic, endearingly psychopathic Jerome. Jeremiah wasn’t the one most people immediately ran screaming at the thought of when the name “Valeska” was mentioned. Not in the least.</p><p><i>He’ll want to change that soon,</i> you muse to yourself.</p><p>He’s silent; so much so that you didn’t even hear him enter the room. You’d been too lost in your own misfortune that the velvet tread of black patent-leather brogues escaped you quite completely. Once you’ve noticed him, however, he’s rather hard to miss. His skin is bleached-bone pale, lips permanently stained with a carmine sheen. You’ve heard that his hair used to be as red as Jerome’s; now it’s glossy green, almost black, and combed to a meticulous shine. Every inch of his body looks like it’s been assembled with care, individual parts in one well-oiled machine.</p><p>Your knees would be knocking together if they weren’t bound to the chair legs. His gaze is icy cold, appraising. He doesn’t smile, but something about his visage seems amused, like the pride one would have in seeing a project they were about to begin. Not what you are, but what you <i>could be.</i></p><p>“I bet you’re wondering why I chose you.”</p><p>His voice - it barely sounds human. There’s a razor undercurrent underneath it all, steel thread keeping the whole facade together. That being said, he is calm, and that may be what scares you most. Your training briefed you on dealing with villains who were fueled by emotion; rage, revenge, desperation. Rationale was a weapon that most thugs and bruisers tossed out the window with their latest problem-of-the-week schemes. The fact that he remains calm... it’s somehow even more terrifying than a knife wielding brute. He smirks.</p><p>“Silent treatment, hm? How rude.”</p><p>He approaches you, his steps somehow still as quiet as the grave, and takes hold of your cheek in one cold, gloved hand.</p><p>“Nobody ever expects the unexpected to happen to them. They go about their lives unimpeded in their stupidity, thoughtlessly walking the streets until old age grips them and takes them back to the weeds. But you...”</p><p>He tilts your head back and forth, this way and that, as if checking for bruises on a piece of ripe fruit.</p><p>“You carry yourself differently. The way you walk, the way you stand. I can see it in your eyes, too.”</p><p>His thumb rubs over the pulpy flesh of your cheek, and you wince at the texture of the gloves he wears. They’re soft, but you can feel the chill of his skin even through the fabric. Does his heart even beat?</p><p>“You’re so... tense. You’re expecting someone to come along and hurt you at any moment; I can feel it underneath your skin.”</p><p>His grip tightens, just for a second, and you involuntarily let out a small cry of pain. He chuckles.</p><p>“It’s rather endearing, really. Like some kind of small animal, constantly on high alert for a threat that never truly comes.”</p><p>You whimper as his fingers trail under your jaw before finally letting go. You pull away from him on reflex, as far away as the confines of the chair allow you to go. The way he looks at you scares you. There’s something predatory in his gaze, but there’s a reverence there. Dark as pitch, cloying as honey, thick and treacled as tar, but reverential nonetheless.</p><p>“But you’ll find no threat here. Not from me.”</p><p>His eyes are so pale. You squirm under his touch, fear flickering in your belly in white-hot bursts, as he places his hands on the armrests of the chair and leans in ever closer.</p><p>“My brother would not show you the same mercy, I think you’ll find. He always had his uses for the people in his cult dimwitted enough to want to fuck him,” His lips savour the profanity like a fine cigarette. “He wrote it all down, you know, every single little instance of debauchery. They always ended up with the prettiest scars.”</p><p>You don’t deny it. You don’t want to know.</p><p>“I, however, have bigger plans. <i>Better</i> plans. Someone like you doesn’t deserve to be cracked and patched up, over and over again. Jerome may have been someone who broke his toys after using them, but me? I’m a creator.”</p><p>He plays his hands over your scalp, knots his fingers in the hair at the nape of your neck. You whine softly, as much as one could in your situation, and you feel the first of a torrent of salty tears slip past your eyelids.</p><p>“I will tear you down and build you up again. I will remake you into someone you could never have even imagined yourself being, someone newer, someone stronger.”</p><p>His grin is terrible, too wide and too knowing.</p><p>“And I promise you, you will love every minute of it.”</p>
<hr/><p>You’d always thought the first time someone touched you, <i>really</i> touched you, would be warm. Romantic, caring even. The presence of light, of laughter, of subtle sweetness.</p><p>Not with Jeremiah. Of course not.</p><p>Jeremiah is cold bathwater and menthol scented soap, the feeling of porcelain underneath you and bleak, dismal cement around you. The scene is almost comical, in a sense, were it not so utterly, completely terrifying.</p><p>He insisted on cleaning you before he locked you away for the night. Your hands are shackled together in front of you, and the perfumed water ebbs and flows around your legs, calm and cooling. He is kneeling beside you, jacket sleeves rolled up to his elbows, moving a sponge over your skin. Iron encircles your ankles, wrists, and digs into your skin. The room smells like him; <i>you</i> smell like him.</p><p>“You’re so small,” Jeremiah murmurs. At six foot even, most must be small to him. “Breakable. Someone like you has no business in the police force. You look like you’d collapse if someone knocked you down.”</p><p>“You have no idea what I’m capable of.” The words are soft as they drop from your lips, and come from somewhere deep inside of you. You want to let him know that you’re not dead yet, not completely willing to lie down and take whatever he’s going to throw at you. The sponge stops moving. You squeeze your eyes shut and wince as he traces a single finger down your cheek, hooks it under your jaw.</p><p>“You have a lovely voice.”</p><p>Your skin tingles as Jeremiah picks up the sponge once more. Soap bubbles pop, one by one, quiet as mice.</p><p>“I do believe you overestimate yourself,” he continues. His voice carries like a villain performing a monologue, as even and smooth as India ink. “As for what <i>I</i> am capable of, dear, that is an entirely different story.”</p><p>His hands are cold as he pours silken water over your skin with a small metal cup, gentle even as he washes away the lather.</p><p>“I will shatter the walls that enclose that adorably feeble mind of yours and rebuild your image in my own design. I will show you sides of yourself you didn’t even know existed. I could mar your pretty skin with as many bruises as I wished and camouflage them so well that nobody would know anything happened at all.”</p><p>His tongue is quicksilver, his words gilded, but there’s venom underneath every single one that makes you shiver in the icy water.</p><p>“I’ve been hiding things for so long, dear, that I’m a master at it now. Just because I’m ready to be seen by the world doesn’t mean my talent has faded. Nobody will find you here.”</p><p>His lips brush your shoulder. Two pointed nails dig into your skin.</p><p>“I’ll make sure of it.”</p>
<hr/><p>Being in bed with him is like lying next to a cadaver.</p><p>He holds you close to his body, as if he’s afraid you’ll run if he lets you go for even a second -</p><p>  <i>(and is he wrong?)<i></i></i></p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i></i>
  </i>
</p><p>
  <i>
    <i></i>
  </i>
</p><p>- but his grip is loose. Your face is buried into his chest; he smells like the soap you used and gunpowder, smoke and some sort of cologne. Your hands are still cuffed, as are your ankles. He refuses to take any chances.</p><p>Even this close, he is cold.</p><p>He whispers poisonous threats into your ears and presses his palm to your cheek, absentmindedly feeling the softness of the skin there. He is absolutely devoted to the cause twitching in fear beside him on the mattress. Imagine - a god devout.</p><p>You convince yourself you won’t fall asleep that night. He watches until you do.</p>
<hr/><p>“Pray to me.”</p><p>The floor feels cold on your exposed knees, Jeremiah's hands even colder underneath your chin. He grips you tightly by the jaw, forcing you to kneel before him. He baptizes you in your own blood and bitter black ash, still glinting on the blade of his knife.</p><p>“I haven’t got all day, dear.”</p><p>You feel choked, suffocated, the air around you chilled and yet still stifling, pressed body-to-body against this inhuman monster of a man.</p><p>You whisper blessings to him under your breath, and he hums.</p>
<hr/><p>Everything feels painted over in slate grey. You haven’t seen natural sunlight in a few days now. Your body temperature alternates between uncomfortable, heavy warmth and bitter cold. Every piece of fabric you touch - be it your own clothes, bedsheets, or the scratchy wool of the suits he favors - prickles on your skin and lingers, like static.</p><p>Jeremiah lets you wander in the labyrinth he designed oh-so-carefully, losing yourself in the endlessly repeating cement corridors. Twice now he’s found you leaning against a slab of cool grey wall, sobbing into your hands. Twice now he’s pulled you to your feet and kissed your cheeks in the manner of a jilted lover. Twice now you’ve pulled away from him, and twice now he’s acted like he didn’t even care.</p><p>In the end, though, he always pulls you back. He leads you through the maze safely back to the main rooms of his bunker. Every time you hope he’ll forget and bring you back to the exit, let you go back to your normal job, your normal life. He hasn’t forgotten yet, and the fact that you’re still trapped here in this godforsaken place proves it.</p><p>You still haven’t discovered much about this <i>project</i> he claims to be putting you through, but you suspect that it has something to do with your more personal boundaries.</p><p>“People can’t resist power,” Jeremiah had explained to you one day, as you’d silently watched him work in his office,“And not many can resist affection. The feeling that someone truly cares for you; isn’t it adorable? So of course, the question remains...”</p><p>He’d looked at you then, and there was something raw and dangerous in his gaze.</p><p>“What happens when I provide you with both?”</p><p>“That’s too cliche.” The brief flame of courage you’d felt upon saying this was immediately extinguished by an icy stare. Still, there was amusement there, the look one gets when watching a child explain complex mathematics. “Well, it is. That plot is straight out of a hack novel. It can’t be that simple.”</p><p>“Hmm. Maybe you’re right. Maybe it isn’t.” He turned away and refused to say anything more on the matter.</p>
<hr/><p>“Are you familiar with subject-object dichotomy?”</p><p>The question comes off-guard to you one day, as he pours two boiling hot cups of coffee into chipped china mugs.</p><p>“Refresh my memory,” You try your best to sound wry, but your throat is raw from crying and you couldn’t, frankly, give less of a damn about the topic.</p><p>“Subject-object dichotomy,” He repeats, “It’s textbook philosophy.” Jeremiah sets your cup down in front of you. Despite your protests, he always sweetens yours with milk and sugar until it’s almost tooth-rotting. You’ve asked politely before for black coffee, like his, but he continues his crusade of giving you tooth decay without ever citing his reasons. It’s always made you furious - you’re a prisoner here, the least he can do is give you coffee you’re willing to drink.</p><p>“Subjects have the ability to make decisions, objects do not. Subjects act and objects are acted upon.” Transcendence and eminence, active and passive, a nauseating mixture of etiolation and milky coffee.</p><p>“Let me guess, you’re going to make me into an object,” You don’t have the patience to deal with his faux-philosophical bullshit right now. You’re sick of staying underground and the diet he has you on isn’t helping - you’re starting to be able to count your ribs in the cracked mirror he’s provided you with. His smile is too smug.</p><p>“No. You <i>are</i> an object, a smaller part in a greater machine.” He winces when he hears vivid words -</p><p><i>(why be a cog?)</i> </p><p>- come back to memory in a flashbulb pop. “Either way, I am going to help you become a subject in this world of voiceless citizens. You’ll no longer be a tool, you’ll help me raze this crumbling city and you’ll help me rebuild it from the ground up.”</p><p>“Does that make me special?”</p><p>Jeremiah grins. “Let’s not get sentimental.”</p>
<hr/><p>“Why is the mirror broken?”</p><p>His lip curls. “I kept seeing his face.”</p>
<hr/><p>“Would you kill me?”</p><p>He’s holding you close to him, curled up together on your shared bed in a rare moment of something resembling peace. He went out today, came back stinking of blood and sweat, cologne and utter apathy. You’d almost felt sorry for him.</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>Your answer does not seem unexpected, nor does it seem to faze him in the least. He pulls you slightly closer. You can hear something akin to a heartbeat, buried deep in his chest.</p><p>“How?”</p><p>Jeremiah’s hand caresses your upper thigh, and you bite back any noise you were tempted to make. Instead of responding, you pull away from him slightly, as much as your shackles will let you.</p><p>“Come now, don’t be like that.” He pulls you back towards him, despite your complaints. Cupping your cheeks, hands still cloaked in reddened gloves. “Tell me, won’t you? I know you’ve thought about it more times than I can count. I see the way you look at me when you think I’m not looking. Tell me every detail.”</p><p>You grit your teeth, clench your fists.</p><p>“Would you stab me?” He flashes pearl-white teeth, blackberry lipstick. “Picture it - red everywhere, the feel of my lifeblood ebbing away under your fingers. Or is a gun more your style? You almost shot me when we first met, remember?”</p><p>You do remember.</p><p>“Tell me, tell me.” Like a child wheedling away at a secret crush, Jeremiah persists, fingers running over your shoulder, a hand pressed firmly to the small of your back. “How would you kill me?”</p><p>“I’d stab you.” Your words are uncertain. “I would stab you.”</p><p>“Yes, yes, go on.”</p><p>“I’d stab you, and stab you, and stab you, until you were dead. Completely dead. And you couldn’t hurt me anymore.” You wriggle under his hands, trying your best to avoid his touch. It’s hard, you being in such close proximity, but you manage as best you can.</p><p>“Continue, my dear, continue.”</p><p>“I’d leave your body here and I would go back to my normal life. You’d rot here, in this goddamned prison. None of the vermin would even look at your corpse,” You hiss, sitting up in one abrupt motion and breaking away from his grip. You can look down at him from this position; you’re sitting on the end of the bed, and he has his back up against the wall. He looks like a regular man. Almost. You can’t tear your eyes away from that pale face. It’s unearthly.</p><p>You feel tears well up in the corners of your eyes.</p><p>“Don’t cry, my dove.” Jeremiah leans up to meet you, swipes a thumb under your lashes. You’ve cried before, you’ve cried often, but you’ve never cried in such an open manner before him.</p><p>“I can’t,” You sob, “I can’t do this anymore. It’s hell.”</p><p>“No need for tears tonight. Focus on me. I want you to look only at me.”</p>
<hr/><p>“You look better in my colors.”</p><p>Gone are the basic white clothes Jeremiah left you with in the days preceding, the simple, unadorned cotton you’d gotten used to. You felt more than a little overdressed, if you were being honest. A soft purple sweater, a green button-up shirt, black pants and shining shoes. The material isn’t particularly fine, but it feels more expensive than the clothes you’d been wearing before. Your reflection in the mirror looks abnormally pale, like just spending time around him is bleaching the color from your skin. A crack in the mirror runs across the eye of your reflection, splitting it in two.</p><p>“Hold still.”</p><p>He stands behind you, his hands on your shoulders, fastening a red bow tie around your neck. It’s the same red as his gloves. You feel like it should clash horribly with the other colors you currently wear, but somehow it doesn’t look as garish as it rightfully should. He smiles, a deity proud of his creation.</p><p>“Gorgeous. Truly, truly a work of art.” He squeezes your shoulders once, twice, three times, before leaning in to kiss your cheek. It leaves a sticky carmine mark, but he makes no move to rub it away.</p><p>“I look like you,” You murmur, voice soft and foreign. It doesn’t sound like your own.</p><p>You know he didn’t use to dress this way. He didn’t always dress in this foppish, overly genteel manner. You’d found crumpled suits in the bottom of your room’s closet, the one you’d been allowed to store your previously-meager clothes in. Shades of pale red and mottled blues and greys, safe and scented of salt and whisky. The fabric no better than the clothes you wear now.</p><p>“Is that so bad?” Jeremiah’s voice is deadly soft, and he is deadly close.</p><p>His demeanor has changed recently. He no longer goes off on as many tangents about philosophy, nor does he seem so set on making you into something you’re not. Talk of his experiment has dwindled. The space that weighty topic left is filled with small touches, conversations about engineering, little favors. The amount of sugar in your morning coffee is almost nonexistent.</p><p>He’s still an asshole, though. You doubt that will ever change.</p><p>“Why am I dressed this way?” You query. It is confusing, and you want answers. “Why am I dressed like your little pet project?”</p><p>‘Cause that’s what you are to him, aren’t you, after everything? A meek, undeveloped enterprise, a brain tainted by a steady creeping poison. A Glasgow smile and a rictus grin - what a pair the both of you make.</p><p>
  <i>(but he isn’t a Glasgow smile, his brother never-)</i>
</p><p>“Because, my dear,” He takes you by the hand and, finger by finger, slips on your own pair of soft black gloves. “We’re going out.”</p>
<hr/><p>	A simple outing, you’d thought, your first glimpse of the outside world in over a week. You can’t help but smile a little as you feel the air on your face as you walk to the car. It’s nighttime; there’s none of that coveted sun you’d been hoping for, and the ground you walk on is highlighted by strips of balmy moonlight. A warm night, a calm night.</p><p>“Try anything and I’ll lock you up underground for so long you’ll forget what the sky looks like,” Jeremiah opens the passenger door for you, cool as you please. When you slide inside, apprehensive, he leans forward and claps two metal cuffs around your wrists.</p><p>“Just a precaution,” His tone is mollifying, for some unknown reason. He doesn’t need to placate you, you’re completely at his mercy.</p><p>Well, not <i>completely</i>. You still have some fight in you.</p><p>“What are we doing today?” You keep your tone light, casual, as if you were shopping for groceries with a friend. If Jeremiah notices, he does not show it.</p><p>“I’m going to run some errands. You’re coming with me because you’ve been surprisingly sweet these past few days.” He starts the car, turns his gaze to you. Acidic eyes burn through shaded glasses.</p><p>“You make a pretty sight in civilian clothes.”</p><p>You turn away to face the passenger side window, and flush. Jeremiah looks like he always does, dressed to the nines in a purple suit so dark it’s almost black. He looks powerful, intimidating, while you look like a (dapper, admittedly) college student who frequents country clubs for fun.</p><p>“Thank you. Are you going to enlighten me on the <i>real</i> reason we’re going out tonight, or do I have to stew in my own anticipation all evening?” You snap, perhaps to hide your embarrassment.</p><p>Jeremiah sighs. “I have to pick up some... supplies from a dealer whose motives are decidedly grounded in his own moral code. I figured that having someone innocent along with me would decrease the odds of me ending up with a bullet in the base of my spine.”</p><p>“So I’m bait?”</p><p>“Yes!” His voice is gleeful. “You’re bait.”</p><p>You lean your head against the cool glass of the car window, eyes unfocused and a glassy gaze focused at some small point in the distance. The scenery ticks by, tree after tree and the occasional lamppost. Stars glitter above your head, a glossy curtain of night sky. Midnight velvet. You feel so small, inconsequential. If nothing else, at least you’ll be bait for the schemes of a madman who sees you as so vital to the success of his greater machinations.</p><p>“Fantastic.” </p>
<hr/><p>Everything went wrong.</p><p>Of <i>course</i> it did.</p><p>The supplier took your presence the wrong way, accused Jeremiah of kidnapping someone unrelated to his madcap plans in order to secure his own safety.</p><p> <i>(not far off, not far off at all)<i></i></i></p>
<p>
  <i>
    <i>Jeremiah took one step into that warehouse and was met with a cool stare, some harsh words but no outright hostility. As soon as you’d followed meekly behind him, stepping one-two-three over his footprints in the dust of the abandoned building, the man standing behind a crate of weapons had fired a clean two shots that just barely missed Jeremiah’s torso.</i>
  </i>
</p><p>And now you’re hiding. Again.</p><p>You can hear the sounds of scuffling from behind the empty crate you’ve chosen as your protector, the sound of flesh on flesh and the choked gasping of a voice you’ve learned to recognize so well. You lean ever so slightly out to observe the chaos, and see Jeremiah, perpetually composed, always-has-the-upper-hand Jeremiah; locked in a chokehold, legs splayed out and scrabbling over the concrete. He looks so helpless, pathetic even. One gloved hand paws at the leathered arm locked around his pale, pale neck, his cheeks losing what little luster they had left. The other clutches his faithful pistol, the one that he now slides across the floor in your exact direction. It skitters to a stop at your feet, and you instinctively reach down to pick it up.</p><p>It feels right in your hands, warm to the touch and reeking of bitter metal and gunpowder. It’s so similar to the one that you had lost on the day you’d been taken by Jeremiah, so similar, in fact, that you realize (with a shock) that you could probably fire it, and feel competent doing it.</p><p>You lean around the corner and try to take aim. Your hands are shaking. At first, the choice seems obvious - shoot the person trying to kill Jeremiah.</p><p>
  <i>You idiot! What are you thinking?</i>
</p><p>There’s nothing stopping you. You could shoot him, right here and now, and stop him from hurting you any more. You wouldn’t be a pawn in any more of his idiotic games, wouldn’t be a component in any schemes. He’d join his brother in the ground, covered in dark earth, and spend the rest of your existence as a worm-riddled corpse.</p><p>But... you don’t want to kill him.</p><p>You just want to be rid of him.</p><p>You look him dead in the eyes. You still have his lipstick mark on your cheek. The person pinning him to the ground hasn’t noticed you yet. Despite all of this, he’s still trying to smile, so sure of himself that you’ll pull the trigger and send a bullet directly into the chest of his adversary.</p><p><i>Shoot him,</i> you know he’s thinking, <i>shoot him, my little project, my prodigy. Shoot him, and let us return back to where you belong.</i></p><p><i>“Shoot to neutralize the threat,”</i> your instructors always said. <i>“Never aim to incapacitate, never aim to disarm. Get rid of the threat.”</i></p><p><i>You could be special,</i> your own little voice murmurs. <i>Special like him. Special and loved and wanted forever and ever and ever and ever and-</i></p><p>Despite their training, despite the lessons you’ve learned like the back of your hand, despite the look of self-surety slowly draining from Jeremiah’s face, you aim the gun at Jeremiah’s right thigh.</p><p>Jeremiah blanches. The expression he’d previously worn drops off his face like a well-worn mask, and the ghost of a word begins to form on his lips.</p><p>Before he can say it, you fire the pistol.</p><p>Your ears are too filled with ringing and the sound of police sirens to hear whatever he deigns to say after that.</p>
<hr/><p>The return to normalcy feels like a charade.</p><p>Everyone’s smiles feel too forced, their kindness disingenuous. There are enough officers willing to help you get back on your feet, it’s a given in the Gotham police force. You’re moved into another apartment, and plenty of people are offering to make you food, walk you to and from work every morning, etcetera. You accept their gifts with as much grace as you are able, and with as much of a smile you can muster, but it still feels like you’re on some hidden-camera TV show. Like at any minute Jeremiah and his cronies are going to break through a nearby wall and take you back to that concrete prison.</p><p>The most helpful ones are those who have been through the same thing themselves. Mostly young people, inexperienced in the police force at the time, often the lover or sibling of some influential figure that had angered the villain in question.</p><p>“It never really goes away, does it?” One looks at you through hooded eyes, a weak and trembling smile on their face. “They get what they wanted. You can get better and move on to a normal life, but you’re still afraid of turning your lights off at home after it’s all over.”</p><p>You nod. You’ve been on the verge of asking to stay at someone else’s house for the next few weeks, but you figure that’s what Jeremiah expects. You don’t want to get anyone else hurt if he decides to come back for a do-over of his failed experiment.</p><p>Or worse - if he did something to you with a delayed effect, you don’t want to hurt anyone yourself.</p><p>
  <i>(hey, you wouldn’t put it past him)</i>
</p><p>You feel a hand on your shoulder. They’re speaking to you again.</p><p>“Don’t be afraid to accept help from those that offer it. You’re strong on your own but you’re stronger with help from people who care about you.”</p><p>You nod and smile, thoughts already a million miles away from here. The corners of your lips ache from disuse. You don’t want to be here. You want to be back home, curled up under a blanket in your own bed, fingers curled and clutching the fabric of a purple sweater vest.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. we can fall in love or we can go insane</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>you want to be safe. jeremiah has other plans.</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <i>(rebirth)</i>
</p>
<p>It starts with a glass of water.</p>
<p>You could have sworn you didn’t leave a glass of water on the coffee table of your apartment, but you’re so shaken up after everything you can easily dismiss it as just a slip of the mind. You lean down to pick up the glass, and it’s just so slightly warm to the touch.</p>
<p>You throw it in the dishwasher and forget about it.</p>
<hr/>
<p>Soon, it’s more.</p>
<p>The green shirt you usually keep in the back of your closet lies crumpled on the floor. The bottle of scent you use on special occasions is moved. The living room window is open just a crack when you previously thought you’d closed it all the way. Your bedroom door is unlocked when you knew you locked it before bed.</p>
<p>
  <i>(It fell off the hanger)</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>(I forgot that I moved it)</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>(I must not have shut it properly)</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>(I... can’t have forgotten to lock it. Did I?)</i>
</p>
<p>Your mind generates excuse after excuse. They’re small things, easily missed by the memory and explained away just as quickly. You don’t want to even entertain the possibility that he’s coming back, so you lock away the illogical possibilities and consider buying a deadbolt for your door.</p>
<p>It works for a while.</p>
<p>Until you work the top off your bottle of fragrance only to be met with a faceful of Jeremiah’s cologne. You cough and you sputter and you drop the bottle to the ground, where it shatters on contact. Clear liquid pools on the hardwood below your dresser, and you claw at your throat. Helpless, fucking helpless.</p>
<p>And suddenly, you’re back in the bunker, back up against cement as his face fills your field of vision, that visceral aroma surrounding you and hiding any hint of the walls, your clothing, anything that isn’t <i>him, him, him</i>-</p>
<p>You hit your head on the corner of the dresser, and fall to the ground. Your feet skid in the puddle of cologne, hands searching for something to grab and keep you stable. Tears leak from your eyes. The corner of your temple where you collided with the furniture throbs in pain, and you can’t stop yourself from crying out. It’s not defiant or enraged at all, merely an utterly defeated yell of anguish. Of surrender. Everything swims before your eyes, vision flickering in dead pixel static.
You wake up an hour later. The pool of cologne is gone, the bottle standing unbroken and gleaming by your bed. You bury your head in your hands and sob.</p>
<hr/>
<p>You didn’t think it could get worse, but the reminders get more frequent.</p>
<p>A crimson bow tie on your nightstand. A neatly folded pair of purple gloves in your underwear drawer. You think about going to the police, getting some kind of witness protection or restraining order that’s stronger than what you already have. You’ve made up your mind, and have made plans to go to the police station the next day after grocery shopping, when <i>it</i> arrives.</p>
<p>A tube of lipstick, a burgundy so rich it’s nearly black, in a midnight case accented with gold. It stands innocuously in the middle of your coffee table, glittering in the flickering light of your living room. You drop your bags where you stand. There’s a small, cream-colored sheet of paper next to it, embossed with careful cursive handwriting. You don’t have to get close to it to know what it says.</p>
<p>
  <i>Welcome home.</i>
</p>
<p>You rush to your bedroom, tripping over chairs and pillows and whatever the hell else gets in your way. Your legs feel like jelly; you don’t know how you’re standing upright right now. The door clicks as it shuts, and you scramble to turn the lock. Adrenaline courses through your bloodstream. You slump against the door and press your forehead against the cool wood. It has a keyhole on the other side, but he can’t have a key. He can’t have a key.</p>
<p>Hide. You need to hide. You need to call the fucking police what are you doing-</p>
<p>Something compels you to stumble further into the room, falling to your knees. You barely know what you’re doing until you find yourself underneath your bed, pressed flat on your stomach and breathing in shallow gasps of air.</p>
<p>He’s not here. He can’t be here. The doors are locked-</p>
<p>
  <i>Are they?</i>
</p>
<p>
  <i>Did you remember to lock the front door?</i>
</p>
<p>From the other side of your apartment, you hear the front door slowly creak open.</p>
<hr/>
<p>The footsteps are almost a perfect mimic to the first time you met, though in this case they resonate off of hardwood rather than cement. In any case, they elicit the same amount of panic. You curl further into yourself and try to still your trembling. </p>
<p>You’ve almost forgotten what his face looks like; it’s been so long. Individual facial features have blurred into each other, twisting what once was a human into an amalgamation of greasepaint and lipstick. He’s not a person anymore, but a monster. A boogeyman.</p>
<p>“I can’t say I expected anything different,” His voice is as smooth as cigarette smoke. “But it’s normally considered terribly rude to not greet a guest at the door.”</p>
<p>He hums absentmindedly under his breath, a nameless jazz tune you’d heard him play before but couldn’t be bothered to learn the name of. He’s still mellifluous, dulcet to the ear, but countless nightmares have ruined that voice for you. </p>
<p>“You don’t need to hide, my heart. I know you’re in your bedroom, but I figure I’d take the time to peruse your... quaint little apartment.”</p>
<p>You swallow. The doorknob twists, but doesn’t open. A sigh of relief escapes your lips, but is quickly replaced by a sharp intake of air when you hear the clear sound of a key turning in the lock.</p>
<p>“Oh, I took the time to have replicas made of all your keys. I figured that you’d need some convincing on that front, and I didn’t want to be inconvenienced when the time finally came to take you home.”</p>
<p><i>Home</i>. That lightless, concrete hell on Earth. You’ve thought many times that you’d rather die than return there, but now that the possibility is finally imminent, you realize just how much you mean it. </p>
<p>The door swings open, hitting the wall. You can see his polished shoes, the pristine legs of his trousers. Utterly unflustered, calm and hungry. Ready for a chase, if need be. </p>
<p>He walks around to the back of the bed and you lose sight of him for a moment, but his voice still drones on, sonorous, in the background. </p>
<p>“Do you want me to check the closet too, just to make you feel better?”</p>
<p>Hands close around your ankles, and you scream. </p>
<hr/>
<p>Jeremiah presses you up against the foot of the bed. Iron digs into your back, hurting your spine. You scream, but he cups a hand over your mouth and shushes you.</p>
<p>“Not another word until I want you to speak, pretty thing. Oh, you don’t look well. Haven’t you been sleeping?”</p>
<p>He’s gotten more flamboyant, or maybe absence just makes the heart grow fonder. His hair darker, his lips a deeper shade of red. His chemical eyes appraise you, fond and besotted, calculating. </p>
<p>“I’ll take my hand away if you promise not to scream, my dear.” Your eyes dilate, and you nod slowly, both terrified and somewhat relieved at hearing his voice again. Seeing him in person simultaneously breaks down and reinforces the image of him you’ve built in your head. He slides his hand down to your throat, holding it in a loose grip. </p>
<p>“I’m not yours.” Maybe not the wisest thing to say first, but you say it anyway, trying to get a handle on the bedframe behind you. You can’t believe he feels brave enough, <i>entitled</i> enough, to come waltzing into your apartment like this. He acts remorseless, a little indignant maybe, like you’d told him black was white and up was down.</p>
<p>“Yes, you are,” he croons, “And you know it. You know it all too well. But I don’t blame you for not knowing how to cope. Think of everything I’ve done for you. You were nothing, a lonely little nobody. I remade you!”</p>
<p>“You didn’t make me into anything, except a plaything.” You snarl, angry despite the dangerous man with his hand around your throat. Jeremiah scowls. </p>
<p>“In the beginning, I will admit, you were just a toy.” He waves his free hand absentmindedly. “A flight of fancy. Something to mold into someone... new. More willing. But then I realized that was a bar I had set too low.”</p>
<p>His hand curls around your jaw, pulling you closer.</p>
<p>“I chose to forgo the scientific method in favor of a new, more interesting experiment. I’m sure you noticed. Tell me. You’ve been thinking about me, haven’t you?”</p>
<p>His grin is sickening. You cough, choke, refusing to give him the answers he wants.</p>
<p>Refusing to give him the satisfaction of being right.</p>
<p>“I knew it.” His voice is a purr. “I’ve been on your mind, under your skin, in your bones. Getting comfortable was a mistake, pet. I’m sure the reminders I’ve sent you helped.”</p>
<p>“Get off of me!” You struggle under his grip, but gloved fingers dig into the skin around your neck and breathing becomes a bigger priority.</p>
<p>“Tell me, how many nightmares did you have?” He whispers, rock-salt voice snaking its way past your skin, into your mind itself. “How many nights did you wake up seeing my face behind your eyelids? I want an answer.”</p>
<p>“Too many,” you manage to eke out. “Too many to count.”</p>
<p>His smile grows wider. “Good. Very good. See, the new goal of my experiment wasn’t to change you, it was to <i>infect</i> you.”</p>
<p>Contaminated. Polluted. Jeremiah is a blight. “You’re a monster.”</p>
<p>“My heart, I thought you already knew.”</p>
<p>“I’m not your heart.”</p>
<p>“Then you are <i>blind</i>.”</p>
<p>Jeremiah moves his hands to your shoulders, grabbing you in a suffocating embrace.</p>
<p>“I want to be the only person you think about, the only one you see when they ask what’s important to you. The star of the show, a captivating solo act!”</p>
<p>Every word is punctuated by his fingers squeezing tighter, cutting off your blood flow.</p>
<p>“You’re a fucking egomaniac,” you gag, “and you have an inferiority complex the size of Wayne Enterprises-“</p>
<p>“Call me whatever you want, but you can’t deny that I have consumed you,” Jeremiah is manic, “just as you have consumed me in return.”</p>
<p>“Please just stop! Leave me alone.” If breathing physically is easier, what he’s saying is making your words catch in your throat. “I’m nothing to you; I haven’t done anything to you!”</p>
<p>“Well, you did shoot me in the leg,” He says, matter-of-factly, “But you’ve done more than that. The more time I spent around you, the more I felt... compelled. I wanted to keep you around longer, hide you where nobody else could find you. I wanted your undivided attention.”</p>
<p>“Why? I’m a normal citizen, I’m not anyone special!”</p>
<p>
  <i>You could have been.</i>
</p>
<p>“On the contrary, do you think I would have kept you around so long if there wasn’t something new about you? If you hadn’t amused me I would have put a bullet in the nape of your neck and been done with it!”</p>
<p>You’re lifted by the neck, thrown backwards into the bed, left gasping for breath.</p>
<p>“You became an enigma, the thorn in my side, the variable I couldn’t control. I’m tempted to keep you right here underneath me and see just what stimuli you react to.”</p>
<p>He cages you beneath him, clinical, pressing himself against you.</p>
<p>“Won’t you let me hold you like we used to?” He coos. “You always moved closer to me by morning.”</p>
<p>“No.” You try to push him off of you, but he grabs your hands in one fluid movement and holds them over your head. A traitorous voice whispers inside your head, <i>yes. Help me sleep again.</i></p>
<p>“Here is my ultimatum.” Jeremiah growls. His free hand cups your cheek. “Join me, at my side or underneath me. The choice is yours, but I am never, never letting you leave me again.”</p>
<p>His fingers caress the tops of your thighs, graze the curve of your ass, trace along your sides. Since leaving that concrete prison, most skin-to-skin touch has made you want to vomit. At first, it’s no different. A cold so intense it burns, like dry ice. It feels like your skin is melting, candle wax in his grip. He taps your thigh, once, twice, repeating like a heartbeat.</p>
<p>The burning slowly subsides, replaced by something warmer. A forest fire to candle flame, the flow of blood pulsing beneath your skin, the steady <i>thud-thud-thudding</i> in your chest synchronized with the time of his fingers. Underneath your skin, you prickle. He is a catalyst, for something inside you you’re not sure you want to acknowledge.</p>
<p>The tension in the air bleeds away, slow and syrupy. You’re uncomfortably aware of how, for the first time, you can feel his warmth.</p>
<p>“You’ll have to make me,” you whisper softly.</p>
<p>Jeremiah leans in and presses his lips to yours. Something has changed, the message hanging in the air clear and terrifying.</p>
<p>“You know that I will.”</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>i genuinely don't know what to say about this.</p>
<p>title is once again from sub urban's "cirque".</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>work title and chapter titles are from sub urban's "cirque".</p></blockquote></div></div>
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